This invention relates to the construction of hollow bodies for guitars and other stringed musical instruments, and deals more particularly with an improvement in said construction involving the attachment of the top plate to the sidewall.
In musical instrument bodies, the natural frequency of the top plate, in place in the completed body, is known to have a profound influence on the tonal characteristics of the instrument, and commonly the top plate is designed to have a particular selected natural frequency to provide the instrument with what is thought to be its most pleasing sound. The achievement of a particular natural frequency in a given top plate is, however, usually quite difficult and generally requires considerable skilled hand work in graduating the top plate, shaving its bracing or otherwise slightly modifying its physical makeup.
The general object of this invention is, therefore, to provide a construction for a stringed musical instrument body wherein the natural frequency of the top plate is modified and may be controlled by the means attaching it to the adjacent side-wall of the body. In particular, the top plate is attached to the sidewall by an intermediate mounting member or ring which resiliently supports the top plate relative to the sidewall. The resiliency of the mounting member may be readily controlled by design factors to produce different members of different "springiness". Therefore, by matching a given top plate with a mounting member of proper springiness, a desired top plate natural frequency may be readily obtained without the need to graduate or otherwise rework the top plate.
The mounting member of the present invention may be used with musical instruments bodies made of various different materials, but it has a particular advantage in conjunction with an instrument body including a top plate, such as a top plate including face laminations of a graphite fiber-resin composite material as shown in U.S. Pat. No. 3,880,040, which once fabricated is difficult to rework.
Another object of this invention is to provide a musical instrument body construction having a mounting means for the top plate which has the effect of lowering the natural frequency of the top plate below the natural frequency which would be obtained by conventional constructions thereby allowing the top plate to be of a stiffer character than would otherwise be the case.
Another object of the invention is to provide a musical instrument body having a more comfortable feel than most present instrument designs insofar as the relatively sharp corner normally existing at the marginal edge of the top plate is eliminated.
A still further object of the invention is to provide a musical instrument of the foregoing character wherein an attractive ornament or design may be applied to the top edge of the instrument body by simply molding such design into a plastic mounting member used to attach the top plate to the body sidewall.
Other objects and advantages of the invention will be apparent from the following detailed description and from the drawings and claims forming a part thereof.
In the claims and the description which follow, relative orientation terms, such as "vertical", "horizontal", "top" and "upper" are used with the assumption that the body in question is positioned with its top plate horizontal and facing upwardly as in FIG. 2.